


The Spirits of the Dead May Walk Again

by Ambrose



Series: Dare to Write Challenge [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Post-307
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8437321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrose/pseuds/Ambrose
Summary: With Lexa gone, her memories haunt Clarke, who doesn't know whether she should try to forget.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tveckling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tveckling/gifts).



Ever since Lexa had died, all she could think about was her. The memory of her - she wanted to treasure it forever, but the thought that she could never see her, never hold her again - it was all too much. It was driving her insane. She remembered imagining the ghost of Finn, but this was different. Lexa was terribly, irrevocably absent. Her spirits, her memories in the chip, if they really were in there - they would just be reconstructions. They could not encapsulate all that was Lexa, the gentle woman combined with the leader of the Twelve Clans, the teacher and taleteller to the nightbloods and the peerless fighter, the warm embrace and the tears in her eyes when she knew it was the last time she'd ever see Clarke - no fantasy or dream or hallucination could ever get close to that. 

Lexa was gone. Forever. And each and every memory of her, no matter how much Clarke wanted to cherish them, burnt a hole in her heart every waking hour, tortured her in her sleep. That reality was gone, out of reach. The time they'd wasted - gone. The moments they could have had - gone. The peace they could have built together - gone. Their future, gone. Lexa, gone. 

And Clarke could not deal with the loss. If she could just forget, for one moment... just learn to breathe again, to think beyond what she remembered, what could have been and what she could never have... She never wanted to lose the memory of Lexa, of her love - but she couldn't bear it. She wished to store it away somewhere she could look at when all was better. She had people to save and wars to stop, that much she knew, but what for? She was feeling hopeless, in a way she knew Lexa never would have, because Lexa survived the loss of Costia, and bore the memory. 

But Clarke was no Lexa. She didn't have the Commander's willpower, and no-one had forced her to store away her feelings to keep functioning. And it took Lexa strength to do that, a strength she wasn't sure she had left in her. She couldn't do it without a little help. She needed to forget, she knew - even though she did not want to. People counted on her. 

"Take the chip", a random face offered, handing her a flat pill. "It'll make it all go away."

 She took it from the man's hands, considering it. This one didn't hold Lexa's spirits. It was just a chip. And she'd seen the pain it took away from her friends. Maybe it was just what she needed... Even though the thought left a bad taste in her mouth. Would she still be herself, without all the pain and the losses that had made her? Not just Lexa's, but Wells's, her father's. Finn's. Charlotte's. Anya's. All the kids who died alongside her fighting the Grounders, who died in Mount Weather. All the people there that she killed, the children she'd sworn she'd never forget. It was her weight to bear. She did not want to take a happy pill and get over it. Not like that. 

Of course, she could take the _other_  chip. Live with Lexa's strength in her. Carry on her legacy. The pain might never fade, but she knew from experience it often did. It just stayed there, dulled, for the times you feel down, assaulting you with memories good and bad, but it did fade ever so slightly. And so did the memories. And if she bore the chip, would she carry these memories her whole life? Would she live with the love Lexa had for her? Wasn't it what she ought to do? What Lexa would have wanted? Someone needed to take over. She did not feel capable, but she knew for certain that Ontari wasn't. And Lexa was. With Lexa guiding her, she could do anything. And she'd never have to feel lost, and alone, again. It wouldn't replace holding her, but that was more than most people ever got. 

All the sacrifices they made, both Lexa and herself, and her friends from the Ark, they were worth remembering, and someone had to remember the lives they lost, and make sure they weren't for naught. If no-one wanted to take it upon themselves, then she would. For Lexa, and all the ones she'd loved and lost. 

She threw the pill away. There was work to do.

An open-minded onlooker might have seen behind her as she left, the intangible figures of people long dead and gone, smiling proud. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can blame tveckling, she prompted me to write this.
> 
> (you can also [prompt me if you'd like](ghost-hermione.tumblr.com/prompting))


End file.
